Contract: Four-year fixed-term contract, full time
Location: Abuja, Nigeria
Salary: Competitive

Christian Aid may close this job opportunity before the scheduled closing date if it receives a high volume of applications. Interested applicants are therefore encouraged to apply at their earliest convenience.

ABOUT CHRISTIAN AID
Christian Aid exists to create a world where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty. It is a global movement of people, churches and local organisations championing dignity, equality and justice worldwide.

Christian Aid is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace and welcomes applications from all sections of the community, including people with experience outside the voluntary sector. Applicants do not have to be Christian, but everyone is expected to live out the organisation’s values of dignity, equality, justice and love. Part-time and flexible working arrangements may be considered.

ABOUT THE ROLE
Reporting to the National Programme Lead, the Market & Enterprise Development Specialist will be a member of the SEPTP implementation team and provide technical leadership and delivery integration across the programme’s enterprise development, financial inclusion and market-systems pathway in the poultry sector.

The role involves facilitating access to affordable finance and insurance; supporting poultry enterprises to grow, become investment-ready and commercially viable; strengthening market access, aggregation and offtake; and monitoring financing and enterprise performance across bank loans, the SEPTP revolving fund and insurance mechanisms underpinning SEPTP’s financing model.

The postholder will be the primary technical link between SEPTP’s implementation structure—including clusters, partners, individuals, cooperatives, VSLAs and Market-Actor Partners—and its financing and market partners, including FCMB, other financial and insurance institutions, aggregators, processors, distributors and offtakers. The postholder will ensure that the financial-inclusion and market-development model operates as designed, remains commercially viable and expands access to capital and sustainable market opportunities throughout and beyond the programme.

The role works across Livestock, Partnership and Policy Influencing, Finance, Procurement, MEAL, GESI and State Coordinators under the overall delivery accountability of the National Programme Lead.

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS
• Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics, Business Administration, Finance, Development Economics, Banking or a related field.
• A master’s degree in a relevant field or a recognised professional finance or banking qualification such as ACCA, CFA or ICAN is desirable.
• At least seven years of progressive experience in market-systems development, enterprise or business development, financial inclusion, investment facilitation or private-sector development, ideally within agribusiness, agricultural value chains or rural/MSME finance.
• Demonstrated experience designing or managing enterprise pathways, market linkages, offtake arrangements and commercial partnerships across multi-actor programmes.
• Strong commercial and financial-analysis skills, including enterprise modelling, unit economics, working-capital analysis and portfolio-level projections.
• Experience coordinating complex delivery across partners, technical teams and multiple interdependent workstreams.
• Strong understanding of youth employment, entrepreneurship and inclusive-business approaches.
• Commitment to gender equity, disability inclusion and safeguarding, with the ability to design enterprise and financial-inclusion approaches responsive to women, persons with disabilities and displaced persons.
• Ability to manage multiple partner relationships and competing priorities across a wide geography, with strong organisational and self-management skills.

DESIRABLE EXPERIENCE
• Structuring or managing blended-finance, leverage-financing or revolving-fund mechanisms.
• Working with commercial banks, microfinance institutions, cooperatives or VSLAs on financial-product design and delivery.
• Applying market-systems development approaches in agricultural or rural markets.
• Commercial poultry, livestock or agricultural value-chain experience.
• Engaging impact investors, development-finance institutions or other providers of growth capital.
• Strong monitoring, projection and performance-reporting skills.

INCLUSION AND SAFEGUARDING
Christian Aid actively encourages applications from underrepresented groups, including racialised minorities, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, returning parents or carers, people with caring responsibilities, people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, women and older workers.

The organisation has a strong Christian ethos and welcomes applicants of all faiths. Applicants should demonstrate an understanding of and sympathy with Christian Aid’s faith identity.

Successful candidates will undergo an appropriate police or DBS check and a Counter Terrorism Sanction check. Christian Aid participates in the Inter-Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme and may request information from previous employers about findings or investigations relating to sexual exploitation, sexual abuse or sexual harassment.

Applicants must have the right to live and work in Nigeria and undertake the role offered.